The FCC has received tens of thousands of comments on a proposal that would let ISPs charge Web services for Internet "fast lanes," but yesterday the commission's comment site struggled for a good part of the day.

The problem happened after comedian John Oliver spent 13 minutes on his HBO show, "Last Week Tonight," ripping the FCC's proposal apart. He proposed changing the name "network neutrality" to "Preventing cable company f**kery," and finished by calling Internet trolls to action:

I would like to address the Internet commenters out there directly.

Good evening, monsters. This may be the moment you've spent your whole lives training for. You have been out there ferociously commenting on dance videos of adorable 3-year-olds, saying things like, 'every child could dance like this little loser after one week of practice.'

...

This is the moment you were made for, commenters. Like Ralph Macchio, you've been honing your skills, waxing cars, and painting fences. Well guess what, now it's time to do some fucking karate... We need you to get out there and for once in your lives focus your indiscriminate rage in a useful direction. Seize your moment, my lovely trolls, turn on caps lock, and fly my pretties! Fly! Fly! Fly!

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): Net Neutrality.

With Oliver's trolls having been activated, the FCC's Twitter account said yesterday, "We’ve been experiencing technical difficulties with our comment system due to heavy traffic. We’re working to resolve these issues quickly."

Further Reading

Pay-for-play is fine for Web users? That's not what the FCC said in 2010.

FCC CIO David Bray noted last night that the system is more than 10 years old and pointed to an article on how the FCC is trying to modernize infrastructure badly in need of upgrades.

The comments site (fcc.gov/comments) seems to be back in working order this morning. The net neutrality proceeding has received more than 47,000 comments in the past 30 days. Bray and an FCC spokesperson contacted by Ars said it isn't clear whether the website's problem was caused by John Oliver's call for comments, but the spokesperson said, "it was down for a couple of hours yesterday due to high volumes of traffic."

Bray said today that the "team checked this morning [and] all looked fine internally."

The FCC is also accepting comments via e-mail at openinternet@fcc.gov. Initial comments are being accepted until July 15 and reply comments will be accepted until September 10.

Better yet, lets all of us keep up the pressure on the FCC to do the right thing and side with the people of this country over the greed of our corporate overlords! Keep fighting the good fight and if that doesn't work, fight dirty!

As much as this resonates with me and fills my heart with a child-like enthusiasm, I am seriously concerned that trolling the comment system may result in the FCC simply rejecting all citizen comments as spam, en masse.

Jon Oliver has a sharp, incisive wit that apparently has the ability to focus an army of cats to scratch a single target all at once. I am in awe of this man and love him even more than before, if such a thing is even possible.

As much as this resonates with me and fills my heart with a child-like enthusiasm, I am seriously concerned that trolling the comment system may result in the FCC simply rejecting all citizen comments as spam, en masse.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think it is possible for government agencies to ignore citizens' concerns any less than they already do.

I don't believe it. Someone has finally found a way to use trolls for the benefit of mankind...

John Oliver, you may have set in motion something that cannot be stopped.

I dunno. Giving trolls a taste of what it feels like to actually be useful members of society seems like the proverbial crack dealer saying, "the first one's always free." What happens when they need another hit and we've nothing to give them?

However, I'll sit back and enjoy the curb stomping that the FCC is going to get before all hell breaks loose. Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war!

As much as this resonates with me and fills my heart with a child-like enthusiasm, I am seriously concerned that trolling the comment system may result in the FCC simply rejecting all citizen comments as spam, en masse.

The FCC is no longer able to simply pretends nobody cares or dismiss individual criticisms as the opinions of single-minded individuals rather than the collective will of the internet.

The internet has now spoken. And that speech broke the FCC comment system.

Finally some progress. This is exactly what this issue needs, high profile exposure and explanation of what a raw deal this is to everyone (except the ISPs).

I'm just amazed that this is even a thing now. If you asked people if they should pay extra to get their voice calls connected in a timely fashion, or that it cost extra to get on a voice circuit that wasn't so congested that you couldn't actually make any calls at peak hours, or that there's a monthly limit to how much they use their land line and if they go over that they get charged (or their service disconnected), there would be riots in the streets. I just can't fathom why the Internet, which arguably could have the same if not greater impact that widespread telephone service had in the developing industrial world, would be treated ANY differently.

As much as this resonates with me and fills my heart with a child-like enthusiasm, I am seriously concerned that trolling the comment system may result in the FCC simply rejecting all citizen comments as spam, en masse.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think it is possible for government agencies to ignore citizens' concerns any less than they already do.

In one sentence you have summed up the cause of 99.9% of this country's problems.

I am a firm believer in a bit of mass righteous indignation in the service of a good cause. Shame and anger are the light that keep these roaches at bay. It's what helped keep SOPA from passing. We can only hope it moves to the Internet and social networks as well.

While this is awesome in the publicity sense, I find it really pathetic that there is just mass assumption that the FCC is going to ignore the civic comment process. And they may if the comments are only 1,000 lengthy, insightful comments and 5 million "F-U FCC!!!! LOLZ!!!!!" type comments.

Remember, it's not the fact that you put in a comment, it's the meat of those comments as to whether or not they have even the slightest chance of being taken seriously. So, while sunlight is good, asking comment trolls to hit up the FCC on this subject is actually kind of stupid.

Actually, the most salient piece of that entire segment, to me, was the way in which Oliver pretty much demolishes the entire idea that Cable ISPs in the US face any competition and frames the debate as more of a drug cartel kind of arrangement.

That's the thing about comedians. Whilst sources like Ars, Wired an various other magazines, sites and tech personalities only reach a relatively small portion of the population, namely those already interested in the topic, comedians reach a far greater audience.

And that's been a massive part of the problem in this whole discussion. The general population didn't get involved. The few demonstrations you saw, the hundreds or thousands of commentaries on newssites and all the visitors to speeches are still an ignorable part of the entire population.

That's not just a problem of the US mind you, pretty much every country has exactly the same problems. People don't care about politics so that even if there (hopefully) is a massive majority against the fast lanes, 90% of that majority is theoretical because they never even hear about those problems outside of a few snippets on fox news or USA today.

A comedian can get those issues down to a relatable level and and communicate them well. Which makes all the difference.

As much as this resonates with me and fills my heart with a child-like enthusiasm, I am seriously concerned that trolling the comment system may result in the FCC simply rejecting all citizen comments as spam, en masse.

Wait, you mean they're currently listening to people who aren't writing them checks?

A comedian can get those issues down to a relatable level and and communicate them well. Which makes all the difference.

This is what makes Jon oliver's comments so important. Politicians can get away with almost anything if they wrap and shroud their intentions in arcane language and undecypherable legalese. Making it simple and easy to grasp is the best defense against this to counter the politics-induced apathy that crooked people rely on to manipulate the system to their personal ends.

As much as this resonates with me and fills my heart with a child-like enthusiasm, I am seriously concerned that trolling the comment system may result in the FCC simply rejecting all citizen comments as spam, en masse.

The way Oliver framed the issue was genius—not because he got all those trolls to write in, but rather because he let ordinary people know that THIS was their opportunity to be heard in a way that protected their interests, in contrast to the junk that people waste their time on.

While I loved the clip (and its apparent impact!), let's not debase the definition of “troll” to just mean somebody mean-spirited or whose sentiments we disagree with. False, misleading and off-topic are still important ingredients for actual trolling, and actual “petitions” to the FCC as promised in the First Amendment are nothing like that!

As much as this resonates with me and fills my heart with a child-like enthusiasm, I am seriously concerned that trolling the comment system may result in the FCC simply rejecting all citizen comments as spam, en masse.

And instead of getting well-founded and intelligent comments they now get a load of drivel, invective and tripe which can be totally ignored. Well played....oh wait...

Wouldn't it be ironic if it were the cable companies slowing down the traffic and not the trolls. Actually that's said and proves the absolute necessity of Net Neutrality.

Some thoughtful analysis I've read suggests that strict Net Neutrality rules will only go so far in fixing the problem (which is that ISPs enjoy monopoly power where they operate). Network Neutrality is just a start…necessary but not sufficient. This battle will not be won this year. Gird them loins!

As much as this resonates with me and fills my heart with a child-like enthusiasm, I am seriously concerned that trolling the comment system may result in the FCC simply rejecting all citizen comments as spam, en masse.

And instead of getting well-founded and intelligent comments they now get a load of drivel, invective and tripe which can be totally ignored. Well played....oh wait...

We already gave them the well-reasoned commend before the last decision. It apparently did nothing. As such, I'm totally fine with trying to "shit cannon" approach.

God, that website is a piece of shit. I formatted my comment before submitting so it was human readable, and what does it do? Just removes all of the spacing and fucking lumps everything together. Yeah, that's real pretty.

Hmmm... just reading through the first post on the FCC Comments that I came across and read this:

Quote:

Hey fucktards. I would like to say on the behave of the human race. Go fuck yourselves. Take your ideas and Obama TPPA and head to the UK, they don't have theirguns anymore so they wont beable to stop you. John Oliver told me to do this. Sue mehard at LastEnd.com.

I don't think this will be helpful or conducive to the goals expressed.

I rather like changing the name to "Prevent Cable Company Fuckery". It has a much better ring to it than "net neutrality".

Also, FCC, if the public is so outraged with what you're doing that it crashes your site designed for public comment, maybe you should stop fucking doing it.

Have to agree that the name is much more telling. People here discussions of net neutrality, and there's debates about what is good and what exactly is net neutrality we go down semantic rabbit holes, but 'Prevent Cable Company Fuckery' frames the issues in a way that avoids that and focuses it a palatable way.